


Subconscious, Secrets, and Safety

by st_mick



Series: (Mis)Understandings [7]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: But he's a bit distracted at the moment, Childhood Abuse, Healing the subconscious, Ianto's not buying it, Jack sort of explains about Gwen, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 20:32:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17649401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_mick/pseuds/st_mick
Summary: Using an alien compound, Jack, Tosh and Owen discover the root of Ianto's break with reality.  Speaking directly to his subconscious, they discover the secrets he has kept buried for so long.  While he is under, they decide to reprogram the dangerous ideas he has been holding about himself.And now the only question is, who will Ianto Jones be, when not limiting his own potential?





	Subconscious, Secrets, and Safety

Tosh had found a thin hospital mattress to place on the autopsy table, and she had put a sheet over it by the time Jack and Owen returned, Jack with Ianto in a bridal carry.  Owen was frowning, clearly trying to determine the best course of treatment.

Once Jack placed Ianto on the table, the three began undressing him.  Jack held him up as Tosh removed his jacket and waistcoat.  Owen removed his shoes as Tosh removed his tie and Jack took his belt.

“Tosh, wait,” Jack said, but he was not quick enough.  Her quick fingers had already unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and she gasped as she unbuttoned the second, exposing the scar on his neck.

Jack sighed and reached over, refastening the button.  Tosh gave him a watery smile.

Jack turned to Owen.  “Psychotic break?”  He was fighting panic.

Owen shook his head.  “Yeah.  The question is, what was the chink in his armor, and who found it?”  He frowned.  “He’s been so strong… what do you reckon broke him?”

Jack hung his head.  “I think it was me.”  He sighed and looked from Tosh to Owen, his eyes red.  “He overheard me make a joke to Gwen, last night.  She asked me what I planned to do while she was gone.  I told her pizza… and Ianto.” 

Owen looked confused.  “But that’s… that’s not that bad.  Just a bad joke.  Tea boy has heard worse, from you.  Far worse, from me.”

Jack nodded.  “But he came to me this morning, early.  He was upset.  Said I didn’t respect him.  That he’d finally realized that he was… that he was a whore, a _thing_ , to be used.  Said he’d play his part, but first he wanted to say goodbye.  I didn’t understand.  I didn’t realize…” he turned away to grapple with the emotions that the memory of that conversation had brought up.

“Jack,” Tosh reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.  “This isn’t your fault.  It just seems so strange.  What you said, it wasn’t the nicest thing, but his reaction seems… extreme.”

“It depends, Tosh,” Owen said, already forming an idea.  “It may seem like a small thing, but most triggers are.  If it sets off something big that’s buried really deep, it can turn ugly far faster than may make sense, at first blush.”  He looked from Tosh to Jack, who had turned back around.  “I want to use the dilexium on him.”

Tosh frowned.  “The alien compound?  How might that help?”

“It separates the subconscious from the conscious,” Jack said slowly.  “It would allow us to speak directly to Ianto’s subconscious.”

“Is it safe?” she asked.

Jack nodded, but then frowned.  “Owen, it would be an invasion.”

“I know that, Jack.  But hear me out.  Maybe if we could get to the root of the issue, we could shore him up.  At the very least, we’d know what we’re dealing with.”

Jack considered it for several minutes.  Finally, he gave a curt nod.  “Do it.”

Within minutes, Owen had set up an IV line in Ianto’s arm.  Then he prepared the syringe, and with a final nod to Jack and Tosh, he injected it into the line.  It took a few minutes for the compound to work its way through Ianto’s system, but once it did, it was immediately evident.  Ianto’s eyes half-opened, and he gave a low groan.

“Ianto,” Owen said, taking his hand.  “Ianto, mate.  Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Ianto said, his voice soft.

“Can you tell me what’s happened?”

“Going to need you to be a bit more specific, Owen.”

Jack and Tosh chuckled, and even Owen cracked a smile.  “Right.  What Jack said to Gwen at the wedding triggered something.  Can you tell me what came up?”

Ianto face screwed up.  In a small, frightened voice, he said, “Don’t wanna.”

Owen looked nonplussed.  But Tosh recognized the tone.  She stepped forward and took Ianto’s other hand.  “Ianto, Love, how old are you, Sweetheart?”

“S-seven,” he whispered.  “That’s when it s-started.  But he’d always called me a useless _thing_.”  He sniffed.  “Always.”

She ran a comforting hand through his hair.  “What started when you were seven, Ianto?”

“That’s when… h-he s-started h-hurting me…”  He let out a small sob.  “I-I mean… other than with his f-fists or belt,” he whispered.  “The only time he ever said anything nice to me was when he was fucking me,” he went on, his voice quiet.  “He said I was exquisite.”

Toshiko looked up at Owen, horrified.  Owen reached out and gave her shoulder an encouraging squeeze.  He looked over at Jack, who was pale and staring.  Owen turned back to Tosh and nodded for her to continue.

Toshiko’s comforting presence and fearless questioning soon yielded the horrors of Ianto’s childhood.  Abuse from his father – physical from his first memory – sexual from the age of seven until he became “too old, ugly and bloody useless”, at the age of ten – and then more brutally physical when he was no longer deemed young and beautiful enough to arouse the monster.

It was at the age of eleven that his father began pimping him out.  “A worthless whore, he called me, and I never understood why he was so angry about that, since that’s what he made me.” 

On the rare occasion when his father could control himself, the physical abuse was curbed because he got less money for bruised goods.  But sometime around Ianto’s fourteenth birthday, he refused a trick, for the first time.  His father beat him so badly he ended up in hospital for two months.  Lacerations from the buckle end of the belt, along with deep, cutting stripes from the leather.  Cracked and broken ribs, a cracked orbital, and several internal injuries, including a collapsed lung and a ruptured spleen. 

No one ever knew it was his own father who had attacked him.  Ianto never uttered a word against him, but when he was released from hospital he showed his father a copy of the video recording of the beating, with full audio that made it clear that Ianto was being punished for refusing to allow his father to continue to prostitute him.

Ianto made it clear that a copy of the video was in a safe place, and would be released immediately if he ever showed even the slightest indication of further abuse, of any kind.  He allowed his father to believe that someone else knew. 

It was a bluff, of course.  Ianto had only himself to rely on, but he had arranged for the video to be released electronically, if he did not check in to the website regularly.  But letting the man think that someone else knew his dirty little secret was satisfying, nonetheless.

His father never touched him again.  He hardly spoke to him, though he was still abusive, when he did.  Ianto buried himself in his studies and began to reinvent himself.  He played rugby, but did not bond with the team.  He mostly kept to himself, though he seemed to draw the ire of his fellow students for excelling in his studies.  He quickly developed the habit of blending into the background.

Despite this skill, he did not go unnoticed.  His intelligence and abilities drew the attention of the scouts at Torchwood One before he graduated secondary school, and he was recruited straight out of uni.  He always assumed that his damage had appealed to Yvonne Hartman, who seemed confident that it would make him easy to manipulate.

What she had not counted on was the fact that, once he arrived in London, he buried the past so deep in his psyche that not even she could use it against him.  He had done it with such thorough and deliberate intention that no one could have ever realized the trauma was there, but for the scars.

But it was not until he met Lisa that he even considered the possibility that he was actually a person, and not just a thing.  She gave him back his humanity, as surely as she lost her own when Canary Wharf fell. 

After losing Lisa, Ianto could only desperately cling to that humanity through Jack’s attentions.  That Jack seemed to care about Ianto had given the younger man hope that perhaps Lisa’s assurances had not been mistaken. 

It wasn’t Jack’s fault, really.  It was just the sad fact that what Ianto had managed to cobble together depended on how he believed Jack saw him.  The alteration of that belief had caused it all to come crashing down around him, the evening before.

“When I heard Jack say that, I knew it was a joke.  I did.  But suddenly, I felt like a thing, again,” he whispered.  “And all the words and… and memories… and… _everything_ came back.  I spent my time at uni in counselling, trying to get past it.  And then, when I moved to London, I just buried it, because it was a chance to start fresh.  I thought… I thought it was behind me.  But feeling like a thing, again…  It made me realize that I’ll never _not_ be the whore that my father created.”

“Oh, Ianto, that’s not true, at all,” Tosh whispered, her tears falling onto his face, mingling with his own.  “You are a person.  You always have been.  He lied to you, so he could justify using you so horribly.”

“You think so?” his expression held so much hope, it was heartbreaking.  Then his face fell.  “But now everyone knows.  I… I’m disgusting.  And I live in constant fear that I have some disease, lying dormant.  I… I was too small to be able to insist on condoms…” a tear escaped.  “I check myself, once a week, using Owen’s scanner.”

“Mate,” Owen squeezed Ianto’s hand, which he had not released during Toshiko’s gentle questioning.  “That scanner is cellular level.  If it says you’re clear, you’re clear.  No disease can lie dormant in your system, without it being picked up by the scans.  We always check new hires for that sort of thing.  You don’t need to worry about that any more, understand?”

Ianto gave a shaky nod, but another tear fell.  Of course he knew how the scanners worked.  But he always felt so… dirty.  He was disgusting.  There had to be something there, something the scanners were missing.

He didn’t realize he was speaking his thoughts aloud.

Toshiko gave a tiny sob.  “Don’t worry, Ianto.  We won’t say anything,” she soothed.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“Ianto, you have nothing to apologize for,” she said firmly.  “You are such a good man, and so strong.”

“’m not good enough,” he wept.  “Never will be.”  He shook his head, despairing.  “And it’s so hard, to pretend to be good, when I know I’m rotten to the core.  Please,” he gripped her hand, hard, his eyes desperate and pleading.  “Please, can’t you just shoot me?  Or… or one of the alien poisons.  Please?”

“All right, that’s enough of that,” Owen said as Tosh cried and tried to comfort Ianto.  “You’re no more rotten than anyone else, Tea Boy.  Welcome to the human race.” 

Ianto looked at Owen for a long moment, considering his words.  Then he gave a sniff and nodded, understanding only that they were not willing to help him in the only way that mattered.

Jack stepped to Tosh’s side and whispered something in her ear.  His heart was breaking, but he knew he could not be the one to question or comfort Ianto, yet.  Not until they resolved whatever misunderstanding still persisted between them.  But he was curious to see if Ianto would shed more light on his background, while still under the influence of the dilexium.

“Ianto, is there anything else you need to tell us?” Tosh asked.

“Probably,” he said quietly.  “I guess I should have, a long time ago, but it never seemed to be the right time.”

“What do you mean?” Tosh frowned.

Ianto chuckled.  “I suppose Jack can’t hate me any more than he already does, at this point.”  He sighed as Jack flinched.  “When I was twenty, Torchwood One recruited me out of uni to be a Junior Archivist.”

“Wait,” Owen said.  “Your background check said you were just an average student.  But you graduated uni?  At twenty?”

Ianto nodded.  He gave a soft smile, remembering his first real job.  “I was pretty good at it.  After eight months, I was promoted to Archivist.  Started doing research, in my own right, rather than doing research for others to take credit for.  I’d been there a year and a half when they made me a Lead Researcher.  I was completing projects for the top floor, and caught Yvonne’s eye.  Just after my two year anniversary…” he trailed off.  He turned terrified eyes to Jack before steeling himself.  “I became her PA.”

Tosh’s eyes widened.  Owen swore.  “Blimey, Ianto.”

“You were Yvonne Hartman’s PA?” Tosh asked, feeling the need to clarify the point.

Ianto nodded.  “I knew Jack would never hire me, if he knew that.  So I changed my record.  Dumbed down, still a Junior…”

“And the shoplifting?” Tosh asked for Jack’s benefit.  She already had an idea, given how difficult it could be, to delete certain records, altogether.  Ianto’s response confirmed her suspicion.

“Given where I was found, and… the injuries, my record was flagged when I was attacked.  I was able to delete it, but it left too big a hole.  So I plugged it up with a bogus arrest.  Figured shoplifting would be something harmless, but intriguing.  Something… innocent.”

It was all Tosh could do not to cringe at how Ianto pronounced that one word.  Something he could not relate to, but had tried to emulate.  She did not think she had enough tears to shed for all she had heard, so far.  And she knew there was more.

“How long were you Hartman’s PA?” Owen asked, seeming to understand what Jack needed asked.

“Almost a year.”  Ianto sighed.  “I know what everyone thought of her, and mostly they were right.  She was arrogant, and reckless, and xenophobic, and ambitious.  But you always knew exactly where you stood with her.  And there was a certain twisted integrity – she absolutely believed in what she was doing, and none of it was for her own gain, other than feeding her ego, but even that was more of a byproduct of the rest.”

Ianto shook his head.  “She was larger than life.  And brilliant.  And frightening, in her zealotry.  But… she introduced me to Lisa.  Probably just to have something to hold over me, but still…”  He had begun to calm, somewhat.  After telling them about his childhood, the beginning of his career at Torchwood was tame, by comparison.  But now, he was becoming upset, again.

“I tried to tell her that something was off, with the ghost shifts.  Really, I did.  I even shut down several of them, using her access, citing safety concerns.  The third time I did it, she threatened to Retcon me, again, but I had to try…”

“Wait,” Owen interrupted.  “What do you mean, _again_?”

Ianto rolled his eyes.  “She tried it about ten times in the first six months I worked for her.  The first time, I recognized the symptoms, and I figured out what it was she was trying to make me forget and put triggers in place to break it.  It became a bit of a game, after that.  She had sealed bottles of water that were already dosed, but she only brought me water after we encountered something she wanted me to forget.  So I managed to break it.”

“Every time?” Owen asked.

Ianto nodded.  He looked from Tosh to Owen, who were practically goggling at him.  “What?  They were always really small doses.  The hard part was pretending I didn’t remember things.  Then, one day I handed her a file related to a project, but the link between the file and the project was something I wasn’t supposed to know about.”

He chuckled.  “Yvonne took one look at the file, and then just laughed and laughed.  Then she shouted at me for a good, long while, mostly about wasting resources.  Then she laughed some more.  But she never tried to Retcon me, again.”

“But she threatened that, after you stopped a few of the ghost shifts?” Tosh prompted.

Ianto nodded.  “I stopped the noon shift, the next day.  God, she was livid.  She just wouldn’t hear reason.  That’s when she threatened to Retcon Lisa, instead.  The next day was the battle.”

He started crying, again.  “I should have kept pushing.  I could have dropped a spike in the whole system.  Lisa would have been Retconned, but safe.”

“And you would have been executed,” Owen pointed out.

“Everybody wins,” Ianto muttered darkly.

“Dropped a spike,” Tosh mused hating the suicidal despair she was hearing, but intrigued that Ianto even knew how to do such a thing.  “You would have needed access codes, to do that properly.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow.

“You knew them?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I know them all.”  He smirked.  “I did tell you, I know everything.”

Tosh giggled.

“Hartman gave you the access codes?” Owen asked, his voice skeptical.

Ianto hedged.  “Well, _gave_ might be too strong a term.”

“You’re a curious sort.  You just ran across them,” Tosh smiled knowingly.

“It’s been known to happen,” Ianto answered primly.

Even Owen laughed.  “Did she know you had them?”

Ianto nodded.  “I think that’s how she was taken, that day.  She had her bodyguard shadow me, to put a bullet in my brain if it looked like they were going to take me.  But a Dalek got him, just before the Cyberman tried to delete me.”  He shivered again. 

Jack handed Tosh a blanket, and she and Owen tucked it around Ianto, still holding his hands.

“But Ianto, taking down the mainframe wouldn’t have solved the problem with the void ship,” Tosh said.

Ianto shivered.  “Everyone said it felt like nothing.  And it did.  It was weird.  But I could hear them screaming, inside.  I couldn’t go near it.  It…  It _hurt_ to go near it.”

“You… Ianto, your file said you scored fairly high on the psi tests, but not high enough for what you’re describing,” Owen said, curious.

“The first time I realized I was different was when I was four,” he said quietly.  “I saw an angel, and it told me things about my father.  I thought it was beautiful and amazing, but when I told my parents, my mother cried and my father hit me and threw me in the closet for rest of the night.” 

Ianto paused as Tosh let out a strangled sob.  Then he went on, his voice as small as the child who had been forced to hide his gift.  “They showed me how to go inside and hide things,” he said.

“Who did?” Owen asked.

“The… the angels, or spirits, or whatever you want to call them.  They showed me what to do.  How to bury the gift.  They said someday it would be safe, again, but… that never happened,” he sighed.  “I still miss them.” 

He gave himself a shake.  “Later, I figured out how to bury other things when I started really working hard, at school.  And again, when I moved to London.  But the tests they gave me when I joined Torchwood… there were things that I couldn’t hide.  So I scored more highly than I would have liked, but probably lower than what would be accurate.”

“I think he needs to rest,” Owen said, and Jack whispered to Tosh, once more.

“Any more secrets?” she asked gently. 

“Just the one,” Ianto breathed.  “I buried it beneath all the others.  Thought it would be safe there.”

“When did you do that, Sweetheart?”

“This morning.”

“Can you tell me what it is?”

“Do I have to?”  He looked utterly miserable.

Jack stepped forward, taking Ianto’s hand from Tosh.  He leaned down and whispered, so quietly that no one could hear but Ianto, “Is it that you love me?”  He leaned back and saw the abject terror in Ianto’s eyes. 

“I-I n-never said that,” Ianto stammered.  “I’d never do that to you.”

Jack was hurt to realize that Ianto considered telling Jack he loved him was something terrible he could do to him.  But Jack understood this was Ianto at his perceptive and self-sacrificing best (or possibly worst).  Loving people was so hard for Jack, because he inevitably lost everything and everyone.  But somehow Ianto’s terror showed him that holding people at a distance hurt them, and it did nothing to prevent his own eventual sorrow.

Jack swallowed the heartache that he had inadvertently caused so much pain.  Then he smiled. An open, sincere smile that seemed to confuse Ianto.  Good.  Confusion was better than terror.  “What If I told you that I wouldn’t mind that?”

Ianto’s eyes widened in surprise.  Then he frowned.  “Why should you mind?  I never asked for anything, in return.”

Jack shrugged.  “Maybe that’s the problem.”

“Actually, I suppose I did ask for something.  I only wanted to be allowed to be near you, every now and then.  But you don’t even want that,” Ianto scoffed.  “Pretty sure I know where I stand, Sir.”

“No, I’m entirely certain that you really don’t.”

Ianto gave him a long, steady stare.  “I never knew you to be a cruel man, Captain.  Thoughtless, perhaps.  But not deliberately cruel.”

“No, nor dishonest.”  Another smile.  “We have a lot we need to talk about, but first we need to get you sorted.”

“I have an idea,” Owen said, realizing that the usual, flirtatious banter between Jack and Ianto was much more fun than its inverse.

Ianto frowned again.  “Owen?”

“Yeah, Tea Boy?”

“Are you holding my hand?”

Owen squeezed Ianto’s hand and then surprised him even more when he leaned down and kissed his forehead.  “Yes, I am.  Now, I think you’re lucid enough to hear me out and hopefully make an informed decision.  I say we take a few grains of dilexium and blend it with a grain or two of Retcon.  The right dose, and we can target and remove the… false programming.  Then the suggestibility of the Retcon will allow us to sort of reprogram you.”

“Will that work?” Jack asked.

Owen shrugged.  “That’s how both of the compounds work, so I don’t see why not.”

“What false programming?” Ianto asked, making everyone gape.

“Ianto, mate,” Owen frowned, surprised that he was still holding Ianto’s hand, but unwilling to let go, just yet.  “Do you know, at least at an intellectual level, that you are a person?”

Ianto blinked.  “Lisa always said so,” he said slowly.

“Okay, back it up, then.  Is a human being a person?”

“Yes.”

“Then every human being is a person, yeah?”

“I… suppose.”

“And you’re a human being, right?”

“Technically.”

“What the bloody hell does that mean?”

“Well, Yvonne always called me a mutant.”

“Okay, well I think we can all agree when we say, Yvonne Hartman can fuck off.  But c’mon.  What makes you so special, that of all the billions of human beings on this planet, you’re the _only_ one that isn’t a person?”

Ianto blinked.  “I…”  Suddenly, he looked completely disorientated.  “I feel dizzy,” he slurred, gripping Jack’s and Owen’s hands as the room spun around him.

“Steady, mate,” Owen reassured.  “What you’re feeling right now is that false programming coming unmoored.  Since we’re talking directly to your subconscious, we’re able to root out some of that ugly stuff and show you that it’s not real.  But it’s probably going to make you woozy as hell.”

Ianto hissed as the room continued to spin, but after a few minutes more, he calmed.  “False programming,” he muttered. 

“You willing to give this a go?” Owen asked.

Ianto nodded. 

Tosh looked thoughtful.  “I think I can work out the algorithm to come up with the proper dosage.  Maybe you two can discuss what the reprogramming should include.  Owen?”  She held out her hand and they left the autopsy bay.

“Alone, at last,” Jack quipped.

Ianto closed his eyes, his expression pained.  “Shall I order you a pizza, _Sir_?” he asked, his voice too weary for the remark to hold the venom that Jack knew he deserved.

“Ianto, I owe you an apology,” Jack said, his face gentle and his voice serious.

“Why?” Ianto seemed perplexed.  “It’s not your fault.  We love who we love.  I love you, you love Gwen…” he trailed off, trying to fight the compound that seemed to have loosened his tongue.

“Gwen is,” Jack hesitated.  “Gwen reminds me of someone I lost.  And she has this ideal image of me that’s a bit addictive.  And she has the life I’ll never be able to have.  And I can’t lie, there’s something really compelling about that.”

“I know,” Ianto nodded.  “You’re on the outside, looking in.  Everything you ever longed for, and you know you can’t have it.”  He choked as Jack stared at him, nodding.  “Don’t deserve it.”

“Why don’t you deserve it, Ianto?” he asked softly.

Ianto gave a soft chuckle that held more madness than Jack could bear.  “Who’s going to love a filthy whore, Jack?”  He snorted.  “Even the pizza got top billing.”

“Stop that,” Jack said, bristling at how his careless words had tormented his lover.  “You’re not, you know.  You’re strong and beautiful and you have such a good heart,” he added, brushing away one of Ianto’s tears.  “And I would, if you could let me.”

“Don’t,” Ianto choked, trying to move away from Jack’s tender touch.  “Just don’t.”

“Shhh, it’s all right, Ianto.  Just be calm.  I’ll stop, but I want to talk about this, after we’ve taken care of these terrible notions you have about yourself.”

Ianto nodded miserably, hoping Jack would stop touching him, but praying he would never stop.  Why was Jack tormenting him?  It was cruel.  But then, so was that comment, the night before.  So he shouldn’t be surprised.  Not like he deserved something so beautiful.

Ianto would have been appalled to realize that he was still speaking all of his thoughts aloud.  Jack did his best not to react and cast about for something else to talk about, while Tosh and Owen did their calculations.  Finally, he said, “You know that earlier, in the archives, Tosh and Owen were just checking on you.  You know… I hope you know that’s not how I see you, and I certainly wouldn’t humiliate you in that way.”

Ianto frowned.  “I’m sorry.  Everything just seemed to get all muddled.  I went from trigger to thing to whore so fast, I couldn’t even describe to you the progression.  And I know… I know you’re nothing like my father.  Not a… pimp.  But I just felt so…”

“Shhh,” Jack soothed.  “It’s all right.”  He was relieved that Ianto was allowing him to hold his hand.  He knew he needed to keep Ianto talking, or he would pull away from the small amount of comfort he was allowing himself, at the moment.  He remembered something else Ianto had said, when speaking of his time at Torchwood One.  “Why did Yvonne call you a mutant?”

Ianto shook his head.  “No idea.  She was always having me poked and prodded, though.  Said it was routine for someone in my position.  That was a lie, of course.  But she had some sort of digital dossier compiled.  Maximum encryption.  Codename: Kafka.”

“What did it say?” Jack wrinkled his nose in disgust at Yvonne’s choice of names.  Though the word metamorphosis was less ugly than mutation, the details of Kafka’s novella being in any way associated with Ianto left him fuming.  If she wasn’t already dead…

Ianto shrugged a shoulder.  “Never bothered.  I already know more than enough about myself,” he said.

Jack raised an eyebrow.  “But surely you’re curious as to just what she had compiled, why she was testing you.”

“It’s on the server, if you’re that interested.  Knock yourself out,” Ianto’s apathy was worrying, but Jack tried to let it pass.

A few minutes later, Tosh and Owen returned.  Owen set about carefully measuring out the compound they would be using.  Tosh made notes on the things they would address.

It took several hours to dig out the notions that Ianto was a thing, a whore, and in any way tainted by his past and then replace each one with a firm understanding of his humanity, his goodness, and an acceptance that while his past was unfortunate, it was nothing that should cause him shame.

They also worked on helping him to know that life could be beautiful, that he was loveable and that it was possible for him to accept love and friendship from others.  Then they worked on helping him to forgive himself for being unable to stop what happened at Canary Wharf, and with Lisa, after.

When they were finally done, Jack had another thought.  Ianto was almost asleep, but Jack called out to him, holding his hand.  “Ianto, just stay awake another minute.  I think it’s safe for you to unbury your gifts.  What do you think?”

“Safe?  To be me?” Ianto frowned.  “You think so, Sir?”

“I do,” Jack said, running his fingers through Ianto’s hair.  “We’re all here for you, Ianto.  You’re safe.”

“I’m safe,” Ianto seemed to be testing the words.

“Yes.”

“It is safe to be who I really am, now…” Ianto muttered, nodding. 

There was something very… _weighty_ about the words.  As though the elements around them had agreed to a sacred contract.  Jack looked around, feeling the vortex energy dancing within him.  He gave a shiver as Ianto slid into a deep sleep.

“What was that?” Owen asked, rubbing a hand over his opposite arm.

“Felt like static electricity,” Tosh said, checking to be sure her instruments were okay.

“Felt like power,” Jack muttered, wondering what he had just helped to unleash.

He couldn’t wait to find out.

***


End file.
